Were Ehiogie West Idahosa not a familiar name, one would have
been tempted to dismiss the graffiti credited to him recently in the media as
composed by a stark illiterate at a pepper-soup joint at the popular Agbado
market in Benin City.
Aside the farrago of illogicalities, seeking to ethnicize the circumstances that forced Chief John Odigie-Oyegun’s fall as APC chair is, to put it mildly, descent to the sewer of crude revisionism.
Aside the farrago of illogicalities, seeking to ethnicize the circumstances that forced Chief John Odigie-Oyegun’s fall as APC chair is, to put it mildly, descent to the sewer of crude revisionism.
Hardly concealing his incitement of clan hate in the article,
the former Reps member accused Adams Oshiomhole of orchestrating Oyegun’s
misfortune purely for his own self-aggrandizement in furtherance of what he
termed gravely as emerging “Bini humiliation”.
Among other fallacies, West-Idahosa argued: "If Buhari
is re-contesting for the post of President, what is the crime of Oyegun? Why
should Oyegun not be allowed to do a second tenure?
"Many of us are left with no choice than to conclude that
Oshiomhole does not want a Benin man to remain in a position of political
influence which is more significant that his role in the political system at
any given time."
As a conscientious Bini man and one who as Information
Commissioner had the privilege of a ringside view of events leading to Oyegun’s
coronation as national chair in 2014, this writer does not only feel implicated
but also slandered by such false conclusion.
As anyone might observe, one has not been shy to be counted
among Oyegun’s critics as national chair at some point. One’s censure in
previous outings is however based on an objective evaluation of his leadership
style which tended to flaunt sterility as substance; the kind that saw a once
promising party fossilizing into bitter camps today.
True, APC consisted of strange bed fellows at its founding.
Oyegun’s own tragic flaw is the incapability to provide exemplary leadership
that could, at least, have brought hope by genuinely seeking to weld these
disparate forces together. If we must take a step further to briefly join
West-Idahosa in his dark alley of ethnic baiting, by what stretch of
imagination or stream of conscience could the weakness Oyegun has shown
transparently then be cited as helping to validate the age-old characterization
- if not romanticization - of the Edo man as always firm and courageous?
Contrary to West-Idahosa’s red herring, no one is trying to
belittle Oyegun’s accomplishments as a career civil servant. But the man we saw
on the APC chair was undoubtedly a weakling, more obsessed with
securing the sitting order and preserving privileges while the great Titanic
was sinking fast.
It will then seem a perfect finale to the stated abject
dereliction that the only party congress eventually staged under Oyegun’s watch
has largely been presenting the nation a theatre of the absurd in the past two
weeks.
Against this sordid backcloth, I think the issue has been: who
can deliver more? Given his indelible footprints at the Nigeria Labour Congress
(NLC) and later the White House at Dennis Osadebey Avenue, there is a consensus
that Oshiomhole would provide a strong leadership that inspires respect and
therefore order. It is perhaps a mere accident of geography that he happens to
hail from the same state as Oyegun.
If nothing at all, Oshiomhole’s proven talent at engagement
would undoubtedly have helped minimize the climate of alienation that has now
more or less occluded APC from its heart and soul. His muscular oratory will
certainly come handy against the onslaught of a seemingly resurgent PDP.
So, for West-Idahosa to dodge the real issues and now seek to
excuse Oyegun’s epic failing on the national stage as something conjured by
“enemies at home” and then proceed to dress him in the counterfeit toga of Bini
champion is very laughable indeed. It would have made more sense if the author
had told us how his idol had used his high office to benefit Bini people all
the while, other than a tiny cycle of bare-foot praise-singers around him.
Now, this fact is notorious: it is only in Edo that President
Muhammadu Buhari recorded 45 percent vote in the South-South zone in 2015 - a
feat undeniably pulled by Oshiomhole then as sitting Edo Governor even when the
pervading sentiment in the province and indeed across the Niger Delta was
sympathy for PDP’s Goodluck Jonathan as “son of the soil”. The question to ask
the emergency champions of Bini/Edo interest like West-Idahosa is: to what
extent was Oyegun able to parlay this electoral distinction to ensure
commensurate patronage to Edo relative to other states in the zone where PMB
got nearly zero vote?
Seeking to scape-goat Oshiomhole for Oyegun’s self-inflicted
misfortune therefore reeks of intellectual fraud. For, only that could explain
why West-Idahosa would accuse Oshiomhole of being anti-Bini but fail to
acknowledge the decisive role the same “Oshio Baba” had played in tilting the
scale in Oyegun’s favour in 2014 at the party level in Edo even after the state
exco had openly endorsed a better-grounded Chief Tom Ikimi from Esanland as
preferred candidate for APC national chair.
Odion |
There is another point where the likes of West-Idahosa play the
ostrich today. They hardly appear to see any contradiction in praise-singing
Godwin Obaseki as “Wake-and-See Governor” on account of perceived remarkable
showing and yet crucifying Oshiomhole on whose bare back the former had climbed
to power in 2016 despite all the odds.
True, Oshiomhole, like all mortals, has his own weaknesses. But
the worst lie anyone could tell against him is accusation of ever marginalizing
Bini zone (Edo South) as governor or being sectional, clannish or hostage to parochial
sentiments. Rather, by words and deeds, he has proved himself to be a man who
believes only in results. I bear this testimony as one privileged to serve his
government as Information Commissioner at some point. It is public knowledge
that his Principal Private Secretary, Olaitan Oyerinde (who was assassinated in
2012), hailed from Osun State. He was replaced by Yakubu (from the north). Head
of the influential Environmental Task Force later made Permanent Secretary,
Ministry of Environment (Major Oloye), hails from Osun State too. His
long-serving Police orderly (Obadiah) hails from Plateau State. His personal
cook (Danladi) is also from the north. His Chief Security Office (Haruna) hails
from Kogi. His Chief Detail (Obasi) comes from Ebonyi.
Interestingly, among those West-Idahosa described as
Oshiomhole’s political “benefactors” from Bini kingdom was Chief Lucky
Igbinedion. But he conveniently chose to be silent on who could be regarded as
bequeathing more enduring social infrastructure in Bini kingdom between
Igbinedion and Oshiomhole after their respective two terms of office. So much
that the late Oba Of Benin, Erediuwa, once publicly declared Oshiomhole “my
adopted son on account of his respect and love for the Bini royal family and
the infrastructural transformation of Bini Kingdom.”
Hear what more credible Bini leader and the revered Esogban of
Bini Kingdom said last week: “I’ve no doubt in my mind that Oshiomhole will
make a success of the venture having regards to his pedigree and what he has done
in Edo State. He did not only transform the political fortune of APC here, he
transformed Benin from rural capital to a modern city that can cope with any
one or any other city in Nigeria and elsewhere.”
By the way, before I resigned as Commissioner in 2015, I recall
sighting West Idahosa at numerous APC rallies looking pathetic in over-sized
Oshiomhole-style khaki attire also chorusing “Oshio Baba”. (This was after
being short-changed out of PDP by the ruthless godfathers in 2011.) So, at what
point did West-Idahosa encounter his own epiphany? While decamping to APC in
2014, he had pleaded to be given the senatorial ticket. Could the beef have
started when Oshiomhole failed to impose him on Edo South in 2015?
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